So I was watching a western last night:
Onne character got shot in the leg with an arrow and developed blood poisoning. He had that leg amputated but the doctor said that the infection had spread to the other uninjured leg and that unless he had the other leg amputated as well he would die. The patient refused and eventually died.
I was wondering how this would work. Presumably for the infection to get from one leg to the other it would have to pass through the groin, and at that point it would be affecting all sorts of essential organs, so amputating the other leg wouldn’t help.
Can anyone shed some light on this? Was this accurate or was it a plot driven fallacy to show how the cowboy would rather die than lose his dignity.
People with meningacoccal disease routinely lose multiple limbs, or parts of, especially fingers and toes, and hands and feet, and shins and forearms,variously, but no other body parts.
The bacteria just loves the limbs and when it travels in the blood it finds a new limb to thrive in.
One thing is that gangrene related bacteria thrive in the anaerobic conditions… the lower amount of oxygen in the limbs seems to contribute to the ability of the bacteria to thrive there.
I think your disconnect is this: infection like this does not spread like a fungus or a plant growing. The infectious agent is in the blood stream and then finds a hospitable place to grow, not all parts are equally susceptible, though any part can be.
When Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen lost his left arm in an auto accident, it was initially reattached successfully; however, he developed an infection which required the docs to amputate it again. He was warned that if he didn’t go through with it, the infection could spread to his right arm as well, and he could wind up losing BOTH arms. So yeah, it’s a thing.